DAILY READING

1 Corinthians 13:13But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love. (WEB)

We often read 1 Corinthians 13 at weddings. It is a wonderful chapter that powerfully illustrates the priority of love in the Christian life. The Apostle Paul starts off this chapter talking about the futility of Christian service without love. He then goes on to describe some of the attributes of love in verses 4-8...

Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 WEB)

And Paul ends the chapter in verse 13 with today's reading... But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love. (WEB) While we are saved by grace through faith, it is the love of God that sustains us. While we all share in the hope of eternal life, it is the love of God that is greater still. Without the love of God, we could not have faith. Without the love of God, we would not have a hope of eternal life. It is His love that defines who He is (1 John 4:16).

My prayer today is that we would all get a fresh download of His love for us. May the Spirit of God give us power to grasp His love on a more profound level than we have ever known before... for there remains faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love!

Ephesians 3:14-21For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (WEB)